, and stroked his hand.

James, too, had turned full towards his son; his face looked older.

"Left you?" he said. "What d'you mean--left you? You never told me she
was going to leave you."

Soames answered surlily: "How could I tell? What's to be done?"

James began walking up and down; he looked strange and stork-like
without a coat. "What's to be done!" he muttered. "How should I know
what's to be done? What's the good of asking me? Nobody tells me
anything, and then they come and ask me what's to be done; and I should
like to know how I'm to tell them! Here's your mother, there she stands;
she doesn't say anything. What I should say you've got to do is to
follow her.."

Soames smiled; his peculiar, supercilious smile had never before looked
pitiable.

"I don't know where she's gone," he said.

"Don't know where she's gone!" said James. "How d'you mean, don't know
where she's gone? Where d'you suppose she's gone? She's gone after that
young Bosinney, that's where she's gone. I knew how it would be."

Soames, in the long silence that followed, felt his mother pressing
his hand. And all that passed seemed to pass as though his own power of
thinking or doing had gone to sleep.

His father's face, dusky red, twitching as if he were going to cry, and
words breaking out that seemed rent from him by some spasm in his soul.

"There'll be a scandal; I always said so." Then, no one saying anything:
"And there you stand, you and your mother!"

And Emily's voice, calm, rather contemptuous: "Come, now, James! Soames
will do all that he can."

And James, staring at the floor, a little brokenly: "Well, I can't help
you; I'm getting old. Don't you be in too great a hurry, my boy."

And his mother's voice again: "Soames will do all he can to get her
back. We won't talk of it. It'll all come right, I dare say."

And James: "Well, I can't see how it can come right. And if she hasn't
gone off with that young Bosinney, my advice to you is not to listen to
her, but to follow her and get her back."

Once more Soames felt his mother stroking his hand, in token of her
approval, and as though repeating some form of sacred oath, he muttered
between his teeth: "I will!"

All three went down to the drawing-room together. There, were gathered
the three girls and Dartie; had Irene been present, the family circle
would have been complete.

James sank into his armchair, and except for a word of cold greeting to
Dartie, whom he b